The random bloggings on what gets my goat!

Archive for the category “Novel”

I tried to do my first NaNoWrimo last year, but failed miserably. I had too much going on in the way of College, family, school tests and general day to day living to really get into it and once I had not written for a few days I became too disheartened and decided to leave it.

NOT THIS YEAR!

I have been plotting my attempt already, I have a good grasp of the characters and I am hoping that with this attention to planning ewach detail I will find it easier to complete this year.

A few points that I am doing this huge task with are:-

Tell your family what you are doing, that you will need this month in order to complete it, if they understand then you are more able to lock yourself away in order to write

Start at midnight on the 1st November, therefore you will have the first 1600+ words in the bag on the first day, and hopefully stay in front

If you are unable to sit down for long periods of time, break the time up, maybe doing 5 sessions of 15 minutes a session and really write all you can down, you will be surprised how much you will be able to write in the alloted time.

And lastly, enjoy the experience as you may have a masterpiece on your hands, or at the very least all writing is good practice, a great way to learn the craft of writing well, is to write, write, write.

Good luck fellow NaNoWrimo’s.

Add me as a buddy if you like Hayley_DM, I am going to need all the support I can muster.

Well, I have taken the plunge and have signed up for National Novel Writing Month which begins on 1st November.

I am now asking myself if I have gone insane!

Why I hear you ask?

Well here is a list :-

I have 2 young children

I work all day

I have 1 husband

I have 1 house to run

I have 1 puppy

I have no time

So, what was I thinking? Well, I have been wanting to write my book for a long time, I know like millions of others, I am screaming “I know I have at least one good book in me!”. Instead, I have just been researching for what seems like a mini lifetime, so I thought if I do NaNoWrimo, even if I did not reach the 50,000 words that are needed between November 1st – 30th, at least I will have started it!

I have spent the last week planning and trying to get some sort of plot going for my project and thus far I am looking forward to it, ask me again this time next week, or the week after when I am tearing my hair out, the kids have no clean knickers, I am late for work, my husband has left, as well as the puppy, the house is in disarray and I am bald!

So, with that in mind, I am now eagerly waiting in anticipation at the starting block, I do not know whether I will be able to commit to the word count, I figure if I do 2,000 words a day, I can take at least 1 day off a week!

At the moment I am trying to research my novel, it is about domestic violence and therefore I feel I need to get it right. I want people to believe in both of the characters and maybe even identify with their plight.

I have taken to carrying a notebook in my bag that I write all my ideas in, character development, dialogue or any scenes that I have going on in my head.

And eavesdropping, boy, I have become the nosy cow sitting on a bus, the park, the pub, a restaurant to try and learn how to write good dialogue.

Can you do too much research though? I have a pile of papers on my office desk that is bulging under the weight of it all! So, I have taken the decision to sift through all of this and then start the actual process.

I figure if I can get a rough draft down then I can go back and make all of the amendments that I know will be present.

I am excited and scared, then what? What happens next? Do I have the ability to be a published writer? We will see.

I am in the throws of writing my first novel, well when I say that, what I really mean is I am just starting to research my book after throwing ideas about for months about what I wanted the novel to be based on.

So, I have made a decision and now I am jumping in starting the research.

I have never been to a creative writing class or anything and I am wondering if I can really do this?

I have started to carry around a notepad in my bag that I can add any thoughts, timelines, character analysis etc in, so maybe if I start to act like a writer, the rest will flow?